way they crossed four small
rivulets near each other, on which were some bowers or conical lodges of
willow brush, which seemed to have been made recently. From the manner
in which the ground in the neighbourhood was torn up the Indians
appeared to have been gathering roots; but captain Lewis could not
discover what particular plant they were searching for, nor could he
find any fresh track, till at the distance of four miles from his camp
he met a large plain Indian road which came into the cove from the
northeast, and wound along the foot of the mountains to the southwest,
approaching obliquely the main stream he had left yesterday. Down this
road he now went towards the southwest: at the distance of five miles it
crossed a large run or creek, which is a principal branch of the main
stream into which it falls, just above the high cliffs or gates observed
yesterday, and which they now saw below them: here they halted and
breakfasted on the last of the deer, keeping a small piece of pork in
reserve against accident: they then continued through the low bottom
along the main stream near the foot of the mountains on their right. For
the first five miles the valley continues towards the southwest from two
to three miles in width; then the main stream, which had received two
small branches from the left in the valley, turns abruptly to the west
through a narrow bottom between the mountains. The road was still plain,
and as it led them directly on towards the mountain the stream gradually
became smaller, till after going two miles it had so greatly diminished
in width that one of the men in a fit of enthusiasm, with one foot on
each side of the river, thanked God that he had lived to bestride the
Missouri. As they went along their hopes of soon seeing the waters of
the Columbia arose almost to painful anxiety, when after four miles from
the last abrupt turn of the river, they reached a small gap formed by
the high mountains which recede on each side, leaving room for the
Indian road. From the foot of one of the lowest of these mountains,
which rises with a gentle ascent of about half a mile, issues the
remotest water of the Missouri. They had now reached the hidden sources
of that river, which had never yet been seen by civilized man; and as
they quenched their thirst at the chaste and icy fountain--as they sat
down by the brink of that little rivulet, which yielded its distant and
modest tribute to the parent ocean, they felt